1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a scanning endoscope apparatus and specifically relates to a scanning endoscope apparatus that obtains an image by scanning a subject.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, for endoscope apparatuses in a medical field, in order to decrease a burden on examinees, various techniques for reducing a diameter of an insertion portion to be inserted into a body cavity of the examinees have been proposed. One of such proposals is, for example, a scanning endoscope apparatus including no solid-state image pickup device in a part corresponding to the aforementioned insertion portion.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-534862 proposes a scanning endoscope apparatus that actuates a cantilevered optical fiber using a piezoelectric actuator to move the optical fiber in a two-dimensional spiral scan pattern.
In the scanning endoscope apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-534862, a distal end portion of an illumination fiber configured to output illuminating light is driven so as to scan a subject in a two-dimensional spiral scan pattern, and return light from the subject is received by a light reception fiber disposed around the illumination fiber.
Then, an image of the subject is formed using signals obtained by demultiplexing the return light received by the light reception fiber into respective color components. In order to provide a small-diameter insertion portion, an actuator component such as a piezoelectric element for driving a distal end portion of a small-diameter optical fiber needs to be small.